Manny Pacquioo

Gabby is now 2 years and 3 months old, and his vocabulary has really BLOSSOMED. From around 15 words when he was about a year and half old, word pickup went full speed ahead a couple of months before his second birthday. At first I was worried that he is delayed when it comes to speech, despite his pediatrician’s reassurances to the contrary. In October of last year, however, he suddenly became so verbose. I even tried to write down all his new words, but eventually gave up at around the 150-word mark a few weeks before his second birthday, because I realized I could not even keep up with the rapid and amazing pace at which he was picking up new words. Now, he’s able to say so many words it’s adorable.

The thing with having a toddler in the house, though, is you have to be careful with the words you say, because he can copy almost every word that comes out of your mouth. It’s a good thing that cuss words don’t come easy to us; otherwise, Gabby will be spouting “P*Is” and “F*Us” by now! We screen what he can or cannot watch on television (which is just as well; he shouldn’t really be watching too much TV at his age, anyway), because he can now say a lot of the words he hears on TV. Add to that the fact that he may even be able to copy behavior he sees on TV. So, as much as possible, I try to limit his TV viewing to Nick Jr. in the morning (at least the shows there are educational, age appropriate, and does not show bad behavior), and a little Willing Willie at night (I know, but no choice; see, our manang is a big fan so the TV is tuned in to TV5 at night). I avoid tuning in to soap operas, because you know how they are: sampalan left and right, some sabunutan here and there, and a lot of walanghiya kas sprinkled all around. We don’t want those words coming out of a sweet babe’s mouth, do we?

Which is why I was flabbergasted when, one night, Gabby all of a sudden said “Pacquioo”. With a cute smile on his face at that. Really, that’s how it sounded. Like Pacquiao, but not really. Because he can actually say “Manny Pacquiao” clearly. Hence, his Pacquioo may be mistaken as F*U, right? Now, I’m sure he didn’t hear it from anyone in the house or even at my parents’ house, because none of us says those words. I don’t even think he heard it on TV, because of the limited viewing choices he has. He hardly watches movies on TV, too. So I’m not really sure what that means. Since he’s still a bit new to this talking a lot thing, he still mispronounces a bunch of words. For example, he cannot make the L sound. He calls my parents-in-law “Wowo” and “Wowa” (Agua, is that you?). The same is true for R sounds. Hence, for all we know, he may be saying something else which I just haven’t deciphered yet. Still, it’s disconcerting to hear something sounding like cuss words from my sweet Gabby! I even tried to teach him that it’s a bad word (yes, in the off chance that he is really saying a bad word). It actually stopped him. Except that he repeated the word again this morning!!! *cringe*

So when you hear my Gabby saying Pacquioo, don’t take it personally, okay? 🙂